With Australian shoppers estimated to have spent $2.4 billion on Boxing Day, compared to $2.3 billion in 2016, there was plenty of festive cheer in retail last Christmas. But, how many retailers will keep the cash register ringing after the New Year chimes have ended?
If you’re looking to make sure your 2018 is truly prosperous then you’ve come to the right place; we’ve curated four strategies to keep sales soaring throughout every season:
1. Gifting is not just for Christmas.
The revenue-boost generated in December comes as a result of gift buying en masse, but what you might not realise is the festive season only accounts for 56% of a consumer’s annual gift-giving budget.
That means there’s a lot of cash waiting to be spent on birthdays, anniversaries, marriages, retirements…and all the other special occasions spread throughout the year.
Tapping into the gift-giving market can be a savvy business move for two reasons; firstly it hits two consumers at once – the gift buyer and the recipient. And secondly, gift-giving is an emotionally-charged activity, so leveraging off the connection between positive emotions and brand loyalty can instantly double referral and repeat business probabilities.
2. Focus on value multipliers.
When Amazon U.S held ‘Prime Day’, its focus wasn’t on the short-term sales increase triggered by the offer – the long-term goal was to drive enrolment in Prime.
Amazon knows that their Prime members are ‘value manipulators’ (or high-value customer segments, behaviours or actions), spending more than double on average per year, than non-prime members. Consequently, a sale involving Prime sign-up has long-term value.
Other retailers can do the same by ensuring that events and campaigns have concrete ROIs and focus on the most profitable programs and offerings of their business.
You might find that offering free shipping doubles your sales, or that Facebook ads convert higher at 8:45 pm, or that abandoned cart emails lead to purchase completion 60% of the time.
A retailer detailed in this McKinsey article discovered that the ‘first 90 days’ was their customer’s critical time frame for a second purchase, finding this was the leading indicator of a customer’s lifetime value, with a 2-3x multiplier effect for driving loyalty.
Identifying your value multipliers may take some sophisticated analysis of the customer’s lifetime value and purchasing decisions, but building campaigns around them, is a sure-fire way to see consistently healthy sales figures.
3. Leverage trends, events and occasions
With any campaign there are associated promotional costs; PR fees, social ads, a custom landing page, campaign branding – it can all add up. But there is a way around the expense if you use your business-smarts.
Noting when days of significance occur in the year and piggybacking off the buzz on social, is not only a battle-tested brand visibility builder but also a clever way to benefit from media coverage surrounding an event, without having to spend the big bucks on promoting from scratch.
Let’s take the New Year as an example, with everyone looking to start the New Year off right – resolutions, health and goal-setting are front of mind, so your communications should be tailored to this collective shift in mindset
Being spontaneous by keeping your finger on the pulse of trends and events that are capturing the public imagination and agile enough to react when they do, can be a great way to keep your social channels engaging and website search engine friendly.
4. Retarget to maximise ROI
If you’re planning to retarget your holiday customers (or in other words ‘engage with customers who have already engaged with you’) you’re onto a winner. The stats conclude that website visitors who have seen retargeted ads are 70% more likely to convert.
There are a number of ways to retarget:
- Cart abandonment email campaigns are a simple way nudge a very warm customer over the buying threshold
- An ad campaign directed only to previous website visitors has a click-through rate 10x higher than non-targeted ads
- Segmenting an email list into audiences (for example those who have bought before and those who have not) and targeting with content-relevant email marketing automation campaigns increases engagement and trust.
The first week of 2018 is nearly over so you have two options; sit back and accept that the post-holiday slump is enviable, or use a first movers advantage to start 2018 off the way you mean to go on – smashing targets, kicking goals and building your long-term vision.
Shippit.com is the shipping engine for modern retail. Learn more about how our software can save you time, money and keep your customers happy this festive season.